Incredible suspensions in the dry air, and he moved between them, dribbling and/or blowing out all holes. He waited for some bright precipitate. His water splashed and silenced. He massaged his limp genitals, not with desire, but rather to press some feeling back. His knuckles got wet, and he looked down wondering if it were urine or final mucus. Pleasure can be an appalling business, he thought and buttoned his pants.
In the hallway, he stood sucking his salty fingers until he realized what he was tasting, wondered why he was doing it, and remembered Denny. He grinned: a psychologist had once called him a maddening combination of lability and willfulness.
Then she walked into the hall without seeing him, and opened the front door. He took his fingers from his mouth, recognized her curly hair, tried to envision her full shoulders beneath the blue sweatshirt she now wore.
She went down the steps.
Curious, he walked to the door. If she turns around, he thought, her eyes will be red, hey?
She stopped by the car, prying beneath the bent rim with one finger, looking absently down the block; looked back at him.
The little chill was all anticipation.
She blinked surprised brown eyes at him, from a face that could have been angry.
"Hey," he said, and smiled at her from the top of the steps, which became more and more difficult to do before her blank blinking, except in confusion. In confusion, smiling, he walked down. "I missed you when you cut out." There are some storms, he thought beneath the mangled sky, it's easier to walk into.
"Sure," she said as he came down the steps. "I bet you did." Her fingers kept moving on the broken glass.
"If you keep that up, you're going to cut your—"
"There's something funny about you," she said with a look of distaste. "That was funny, or queer, or something."
"Look," he said, "you're not going to call me names," and realized he did not know what hers was. That brought him crashing through his embryo anger till he was much closer to her than he'd wanted to be: his fingers against his leg were trying to take the same position as hers. His face pulled to mimic hers.
"When he was… was with me, that was all between you and him. I might as well not have been there!"
"When I was with you, that was all between you and him. I might as well have been beating my meat," and felt, saying it, the comparison was unfair. "He says you're his best friend. What is it? He thinks he's doing it for you, you think you're doing it for him?" His face, straining after hers, registered a sudden sadness inside him so intensely it took him instant after instant to see her expression had changed.
"I used to be the smartest person in my class!" she said, suddenly.
He wondered why his eyes were burning till he saw tears in hers.
"I used… to be the smartest person in my class!" She dropped her head.
He dropped his, whispered, "Hey…" and put his hand (too gently, he thought) on the back of her neck, touched his forehead to hers.
"Why don't you go away?" she said with sad, exhausted anger.
"Okay." He squeezed, snorted the faint laughter of withdrawal, and went back up the steps (his palm cold; her neck had been warm). Halfway up the hall, though, he was frowning.
When he climbed back into the loft, Denny (between Kid's fists) turned over and blinked and grunted.
"Hey, your girl friend's outside all upset."
"Oh, shit!" Denny said and sat up. He ground the heels of his palms against his eyes, then started for the edge of the loft.
Kid grabbed his unchained ankle.
Denny looked back.
"You guys go through this much trauma every time you screw?"
"It's my fault," Denny said.
"Sure," Kid nodded. "Come on back here, will you?"
"I better go. I guess I been doing too much talking about you. I guess I ain't talked to her about nothing else for a pretty long time."
"Which reminds me," Kid said. "You're making a lot more out of that lady in the department store with the bee-bee gun than it's really worth, you know?"
Denny grinned. "I been talking about you a hell of a lot longer than that," and went over the side.
Kid lay back, grunted, "Fuck…" and rolled over, wishing there was someone else there. Maybe, he thought, very tired, he'll bring her back. Denny, he figured, would return. Should he have actually touched her? (He recognized the beginnings of a welter of paranoid speculation; recognized as well that sleep lay on the other side of it.) Touched her in the street? If they were lovers, he would be able to find out in a day, a week, a month if it was the proper thing to do. Hell, should he have told Denny about it at all? He was being used: he didn't like it. That's not the sort of shit you lay on somebody you just dragged into bed. Lovers? He decided he didn't like her at all. (She, among silent others, had once said, "Goodbye.") On the other hand, he shouldn't go prying around in emotional closets like that. (He turned over again, wishing Lanya had not disappeared.) Silly, stupid kids! Why did Denny drag her in in the first place? Righteous indignation, he finally decided, was easier. For the first time in a long while he was aware of the chain around him. Careful, he mulled, that it doesn't come apart — not sure why he should be afraid it might.
2
He woke alone.
Kid sat up, with his eyes closed, for half a minute. The air in the loft was heavy and dry. Would the pulsing at the back of his head become a headache? People moved in other rooms. The bathroom door closed three times. Grinding his knees on the blanket, he turned for his clothes.
Denny's were gone.
In another room a black woman laughed.
His pants were still on. He shrugged up his vest and, with neither buttoned, climbed down. One of the sleeping bags was still occupied. Two others were shed in quilted rings.
He leaned on the wall to pull up his boot. He wished again he had the other, but felt habit dissolve the wish. He went into the hall wondering if he'd encounter Denny or the girl first.
From the door ahead, light slapped across the hall and made him squint.
"Hey, Dragon Lady!"
Kid looked in.
Nightmare, squatting on one of the mattresses, kneaded his thick, scarred shoulder. "Hey, Dragon Lady, you been down!"
The gorgeous beast dazzled about the shabby room.
Nightmare let himself thud backward against the wall. A figure under a blanket moved away. Nightmare laughed and rocked and jangled.
"Down and back! Oh, hey, man. And back!" Dragon Lady turned, killed her lights. And laughed. Kid watched her stained teeth gape.
A dozen people slept around the room. Nightmare and Dragon Lady talked on raucously:
"I brought you coffee!" She breathed heavily, breasts stretching her vest's rawhide laces. "Adam and Baby are out there now putting it together. Found a whole fucking warehouse full!" Her face was long and dark as bittersweet chocolate. "Brought you back a whole carton."
"Instant?"
"No." She made a fist. "No!" — insistent as an economics teacher. "The real thing. My boys are making it in the kitchen."